Check Out The Easiest Technique To Disable System Tray For Hiding Icons In Windows Vista And XP

Windows Operating System displays icons of many programs in the Notification Area or System Tray for urgent and active notifications. This arrangement also enables quick and easy access to these programs. Though it is considered to be a useful tool by majority, there are lots of users who do not find this feature interesting.

If you are among those who feel that the Notification Area/ System Tray is of no use, you can free up the bottom right-hand side area to make more space for Windows Taskbar. For doing so, you need to turn off or disable system tray by using the registry trick. Follow the simple steps mentioned below.

1> Click on the “Start” button to open Start Menu.2> If you are using Windows XP, click on “Run” option, type in “regedit” and press “Enter” key. If you are using Windows Vista, click on “Start Search” option, type in “regedit” and press “Enter”.3> Once the “Registry Editor” opens, just navigate to the registry key mentioned below:

5> Double-click on the registry entry “NoTrayItemsDisplay” and fix its value data as 1.
The change will be effective once you restart the computer.

Now that you have made the necessary settings in the registry, all system, application and program icons will remain hidden and won’t be displayed. The applications will still run normally, just icons won’t be shown in the Notification Area/ System Tray. The only thing you will see in the bottom right-hand side area is the clock.

To enable the System Tray back and display icons in it, you just need to delete the registry key “NoTrayItemsDisplay” or change its value data to 0. If you happen to lose icons or cannot locate all your icons in the Notification Area/ System Tray, just search for the registry key “NoTrayItemsDisplay” and fix its value data as ‘0’ (zero).